Egypt’s revolutionary process is a complicated convolution of people power and military co-optation. To succeed, it will have to take on the army anew.

EGYPT – Now that President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have been forced from power, one question appears to be burning on everyone’s lips: is this Egypt’s second revolution, or is it really just a coup d’étât? Anyone outside of Egypt who still pretends to have a straightforward answer to this question is either lying or deluding themselves. The truth is that periods of grave revolutionary upheaval never lend themselves to simplistic binary narratives. If anything, the answer is neither: this is neither a second revolution nor a coup d’étât. Why? CONTINUE READING

EGYPT – People were waiting all day for the end of the ultimatum the army had set for President Mohammed Morsi and to see the revolution process to continue. Late in the afternoon, hundreds of thousands of anti-Morsi protesters again flocked to Tahrir Square and the presidential palace.

Eventually, the chief of the armed forces, General Abdel-Fatah Al-Sisi, announced that he had suspended the constitution and would nominate the head of the constitutional court, Adli Mansour, as interim president on Thursday. Both presidential and parliamentary elections would follow shortly afterwards and a transitional cabinet would be named. The crowds erupted into ear-splitting cries of joy, Tahrir Square turned into a huge party. Fireworks were let off, people hugged each other everywhere, crying tears of joy. CONTINUE READING

EGYPT – Egypt is bracing for a showdown between the military and President Mohamed Morsi, who has rejected an army ultimatum to end a political crisis with his opponents, who have called for his resignation.

In a last-minute statement before the 4:30pm (14:30 GMT) deadline expired, the Egyptian presidency said that a coalition government should be part of a solution to the country’s political standoff but appeared to offer no new compromises.

The statement reiterated that Morsi held opposition parties responsible for obstructing a political initiative that would also set up a panel to prepare amendments to the constitution passed into law last December. CONTINUE READING